ATTENTION BEAST READERS! The BEAST
needs you to be the next Mayor of our dear city.
That's right! We want you, a lowly loyal BEAST reader, to be the next
Mayor of the city of Buffalo. WE ARE TOTALLY SERIOUS! We are launching
a search for 16 contestants willing to run for the position of Mayor in
2005...more

A
new and damning
World Health Organization report has set off yet another round of condemnation
and hand-wringing over the living nightmare that is the Sudanese crisis.
But don't worry everyone-we're on the case. Never mind that we've been
"on the case" for years, and even Roscoe P. Coltrane from "The
Dukes of Hazzard" would have had it figured out by lunchtime..more

Early reports are inconclusive
on whether or not the Republican National Convention was a boon to New
York City's economy. None, however, have yet attempted to account for
the bonanza in unreported and untaxable income flowing into the city during
the week of the GOP soiree. In a quest for hard figures, investigate reporter
I.M. Simpering called on his contacts in Manhattan's escort industry.
Instead he heard tales of hard living and debauchery, which he has agreed
to publish in The Beast...more

The third anniversary of 9/11
last week brought on a predictable onslaught of recaps and memorials,
reminding us all of the tragedy of that day. We've been doing a lot of
bombing and invading since then, ostensibly to defend against further
attacks. Most of us felt pretty good about invading Afghanistan and removing
the Taliban regime, but a lot of people are having second thoughts about
Iraq. Our reasoning for the Iraqi invasion has changed as quickly as evidence
of WMDs and a Saddam-Osama link has been discredited. What's the connection?
But there is a connection between Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as every
conflict our nation is involved in today: oil. At every turn, pipelines
and proven reserves seem more of a motivation to our foreign policy than
Homeland Security...more

These milestones come along, reminding us and the wrath struggles
to break free again. The anger is never really absent, just dormant like
a sleeping volcano.

Back when the pack of professional liars in Washington DC
and their slavish corporate press still had Americans brainwashed that
Iraq was a threat to the United States, General Tommy Franks--then the
chief military planner of the catastrophe in Iraq--said, "We don't
do body counts."more

...the protests of the last week in
New York were more than a silly, off-key exercise in irrelevant chest-puffing.
It was a colossal waste of political energy by a group of people with
no sense of history, mission or tactics, a group of people so atomized
and inured to its own powerlessness that it no longer even considers seeking
anything beyond a fleeting helping of that worthless and disgusting media
currency known as play...more

Proving yet again to be the true
vangaurd of free journalism, The BEAST offers an insightful look into
the life of Chris Riordan as documented by Chris Riordan. Former Editor
of The BEAST and current president of Uticans For Change, Riordan was
on his way to the Republican National Convention to document the protests
on Saturday August 28. Along the way he decided to use his shitty tape
recorder to document the reflections of a ruggedly handsome neogonzobongojournalist
who dances really well....more

Private
Bridge Plan Threatens Local Graft-
We stopped holding our breath for a new bridge two years ago, thanks.
With the crooked bunch we have running the show on this side of the border
it will never happen-it's a bet even Vegas bookies won't take (we checked).
The thing's been going around and around for years now, and they still
can't figure out what it will look like, where it will go, who's going
to build it, etc., etc., wasting millions of dollars on studies, designs,
travel, parties, press conferences and miscellaneous perks. So when a
private company from Detroit filed plans with the State Department and
the Canadian Ministry of The Same Thing to build its own bridge, insiders
went apeshit tripping all over each other to bad mouth the idea...more

What
do you get when you add one of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s drinking buddies
from Good Will Hunting, that is-he-acting-or-isn’t-he crazy quality
of Tom “if the bitch gets outta line she’s getting a beating” Sizemore,
and Mel Gibson’s former barber as a director?